Chicago's 2008-09 theater season has turned into a
homecoming of artists who began their careers here before
moving on to greater glory on the coasts. "CSI"'s
William L. Peterson returned to the Chicago stage in
Steppenwolf's Dublin Carol last Fall, and now
"Friends"' David Schwimmer is appearing with the
company he helped found for the first time since his TV
series ended production in 2003. Further, his return to
Lookingglass in this production has been under the direction
of Steppenwolf's Anna D. Shapiro (co-directing with Jessica
Thebus) in her first local project after winning the Tony
for August: Osage County. It's fitting that the
occasion should be a production of the Thornton Wilder play
that celebrates community and recalls a time when most
people never ventured very far from home.

Audiences coming to Our Town hoping to see a bit
of "Friends"' Ross Geller on stage won't be
disappointed. Schwimmer pulls from Ross' insecurities and
vulnerabilities in creating a believably teenaged George
Gibbs, and Schwimmer's comedic skills, honed over 11 seasons
of performing in a top sitcom before live audiences, are
amply in evidence. His timing and reactions are dead-on as
he creates a George who's just a little slow on the uptake.
Schwimmer also shows some dramatic chops in his character's
brief but convincing act three breakdown.

Directors Shapiro and Thebus have found the perfect way
to play the comedy in this piece. The laughs are frequent,
though gentle, and borne of self-recognition of the little
delusions and inconsistencies with which we conduct our
lives. The humor provides a good measure of entertainment
value to a piece in which not a lot actually happens, and the
brisk pacing gets the play's points across in just the right
amount of time to make its points. Performances are
presentationalcertainly Wilder wants us to know his view
of small America circa 1901 was an idealized onebut not
forced or self-conscious. Their tone is set by Joey
Slotnick's measured performance as the Stage Manager. He's
charming, but never forced or seeking a period quaintness.
His interpretation lets Wilder's wise material largely speak
for itself. (Slotnick has made a successful career for
himself as a film and TV actor on the coasts as well).

Wilder gave Our Town a deliberate theatricality. His narrator is called the Stage Manager after all, and the
play is meant to be performed with only a minimal set.
Lookingglass has taken that concept even further to
highlight the skills of its ensemble. Most noticeable is the
fact that the cast memberscontemporaries who founded
their company after graduating from Northwestern Universityall seem about the same age, which means
they're mostly older or younger than their characters. This
takes some getting used to, but before long, the ensemble
convinces they're the ages they playthrough their
physical movement, their line readings, but commendably, not
through altering their voices to sound old or young. The
fathers are especially good. David Catlin gives Dr. Gibbs a
deliberateness and wisdom that avoids cliché while Andrew
White's Mr. Webb is a worldly and perceptive newspaper
publisher of the Grover's Corners Sentinel. As the
mothers, Heidi Stillman is a wistful Mrs. Gibbs and
Christine Mary Dunford is all New England stoicism as Mrs.
Webb. Laura Eason's Emily Webb is her mother's daughtersmart and resolute and very much what George needs in his
life.

Thebus and Shapiro take Wilder's minimalist concept even
further by wardrobing them all in a scheme of costumes by
Janice Pytel that dresses the entire cast in a gauzy neutral
beige that refers to no particular period. The women are in
dresses, the boys in off-white T-shirts, and the men with
jackets or vests (presumably signifying their maturity) over
those shirts. Though there's a prop designer listed among
the credits, there seem to be no props, as the cast
pantomimes their characters' everyday activities like
preparing food, tossing balls or hurling newspapers. The
major production value, though, is an impressive one. It's
an array of period artifactsdesks, lamps and even a baby
grand piano along with a globe that at one point serves as a
quite romantic moonsuspended over the playing area. I
would guess these are the work of scenic designer John
Musial, though maybe they're the props credited to Galen
Pejeau. Though the globe is the only one to figure in the
play's action, these items serve to take us into the story's
period before the performance begins.

Lookinggglass' virtual in-the-round stagingthe audience
is mostly on two sides of the action, with small seating
areas on the other two sidesbrings us close enough to the
action to feel a part of the town. This production's
deliberate theatricality, while a little off-putting at
first, is ultimately an honest and persuasive way of
communicating Wilder's ideas. Though his story is set in the
first decade of the 20th century, he clearly intended
audiences of the 1930s, when it was first performed, to
recognize a timelessness in its message. Regardless of the
changes in our daily routines over the decades, which even
in the 1930s bore little resemblance to Grover's Corners,
he wants us to recognize that we all share a very brief time
together in our communities and must savor it while we can.
Any greater amount of visual period detail might obscure
that point.

Our Town will be performed Wednesdays through
Sundays through April 5th at the Lookingglass Theater,
inside the Chicago Water Works, 821 N. Michigan Avenue. For
more information and box office hours, visit
www.lookingglasstheatre.org.